CONAKRY/MONROVIA (Reuters) - Bushmeat - from bats to antelopes, squirrels, porcupines and monkeys - has long held pride of place on family menus in West and Central Africa, whether stewed, smoked or roasted. A visit to a traditional market in the region assails the senses with a huge variety of forest game - mammal, bird and reptile carcasses smoked and partitioned and the smell of singed animal hair filling the air. But an outbreak of the deadly Ebola fever in Guinea has rekindled concerns about the health risks of age-old African hunting and eating traditions that bring humans into close contact with wild forest animals.

LONDON (Reuters) - Peter Piot was 27, newly qualified and working in a microbiology lab in Antwerp when he received a flask of human blood contaminated with a mysterious pathogen that had been killing people in the forests of Zaire. If he'd known then what he was to discover - that inside was Ebola, one of the most lethal infectious diseases now known in humans - he would have taken more safety precautions. As it was, Piot and his colleagues wore only latex gloves and white cotton lab coats as they unscrewed the top, took out its contents - vials of infected blood taken from a Flemish nun in Zaire, stored in a blue thermos flask and couriered to Belgium on a passenger plane - and began analysing them.

FREETOWN (Reuters) - An outbreak of hemorrhagic fever that has killed 29 people in Guinea may have spread across the border into neighboring Sierra Leone, according to a World Health Organisation (WHO) document and a senior Sierra Leone health official. Guinean health officials have registered 49 cases of infection in three southeastern towns and the capital Conakry since the outbreak was first reported on February 9. While the exact type of the fever, which is characterized by bleeding, has yet to be identified, a senior official in Guinea said on Friday preliminary tests had narrowed down the possibilities to Ebola or Marburg Hemorrhagic Fever.

PARIS (Reuters) - The son of Equatorial Guinea's president has been put under formal investigation in France for money laundering, his lawyer said on Wednesday. French magistrates have been investigating Equatorial Guinea's leaders since December 2010 amid suspicions of embezzling public funds to buy real estate and other assets in France. Teodorin Obiang, the son of Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang, was informed that he was put under investigation by video conference from his country, his lawyer Emmanuel Marsigny told Reuters.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former adviser to mining company BSG Resources pleaded guilty in New York on Monday to one count of obstructing a criminal investigation in connection with a bribery investigation into mining rights in Guinea. Frederic Cilins, a French national, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge William Pauley. The plea was the latest development in an international saga surrounding one of the world's largest untapped iron ore deposits. Cilins, 51, was arrested last April as part of a U.S. probe into potentially illegal payments made to Guinean officials to secure mining rights to the deposit for BSG Resources (BSGR)

CONAKRY, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Protesters angered by the death of a young man in police custody ransacked a police station and government buildings in Guinea's main aluminium smelting town on Wednesday, local residents said. Work at Russian aluminium giant RUSAL's Friguia refinery has been suspended since April 2012 hitting household incomes hard and aggravating social unrest in the town of Fria, 160 km (99 miles) north of the capital Conakry. Protesters threw stones and burned tyres in the town's streets, before attacking the police station.

* Companies failed to reach agreement over price * Initially valued at $500-600 mln, but the value has fallen * B&A worried about risks of working in Guinea -source By Silvia Antonioli and Anjuli Davies LONDON, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Brazilian mining firm B&A MineraÃ§Ã£o has pulled out of talks to buy BHP Billiton's stake in the Mount Nimba iron ore deposit in Guinea, bank and industry sources said, in the latest sign that projects in riskier countries have become a tough sell.